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Examples of "sense of wonder" in TOS. My contention is that they are few and far between, and that the success of the show has not been dependant upon them.
Registered: Mar 1999
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- Kirk's voiceover in the opening credits - Being surprised and touched with Spock's relationship with Jill Ireland's character - and the bitter-sweet resolution of same. - Amok Time - Journey to Babel - (what felt like dozens of alien races - for a make-up budget of less than my house's list price). - McCoy injecting Spock to take his place in "The Empath" - the whole concept of deep friendship of this type - and sacrifice - in the late 60's between hetero men. - Kirk's last orders in "The Tholian Web". - "Court Martial" - M5 - and the controversies it sparked. - "The Conscience of the King" - my first exposure to Shakespeare at age 8.
What? Few of these require a sf setting - could have been done in a cop or western genre? Well, they wouldn't have been. It took a far-out setting to get these things out there. And to get me to watch.
I've been watching Trek since 1966 (I was 6). I've never felt about another series the way I do about TOS. Some episodes of later shows have indeed touched me with that sense of wonder: - The introduction of the Borg - Sisko meeting the prophets - Janeway bringing her crew home But for consistent 'sense of wonder' - TOS had them all beat.
-------------------- 'One man's theology is another man's belly laugh.' - Lazarus Long
Registered: Feb 2001
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We had a CBS colecovision! . Funly enough yesterday for some reason I was walking around the kitchen making the noises from the game Q*Bert! *boink* *boink* *boink* *nerrderp* (the coiled purple snake) *nerrderp* *boink* *nerrderp* *boink* *boink* *gluupgluupgluupgluupgluupgluup* (colourful disc) *nerrderp* *boink* *boink* *boink *boi-neernerneererneenernerr* (jumped off the edge!) *doodoodo!*
LOL!
-------------------- "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." - Jim Halpert. (The Office)
People also could have liked that idea that even though we are living in a hum-drum world, there maybe hope that things will get more interesting... too bad we won't be alive for it...
-------------------- "You are a terrible human, Ritten." Magnus "Urgh, you are a sick sick person..." Austin Powers A leek too, pretty much a negi.....
Registered: Sep 2000
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I'm not going to talk about all of those, but a few:
quote:Kirk's voiceover in the opening credits
Granted. But you aren't seriously suggesting that Star Trek became popular because people liked the credits?
quote:Being surprised and touched with Spock's relationship with Jill Ireland's character - and the bitter-sweet resolution of same.
Good episode. Great character. Not sense of wonder. Nothing science fictional.
quote:Amok Time
I would quibble a bit with this, but it would just be a quibble.
quote:Journey to Babel - (what felt like dozens of alien races - for a make-up budget of less than my house's list price).
I'd actually agree that Journey to Babel was one episode which took advantage of the show's science fictional setting, but there was nothing in the costuming that wasn't being done on Lost in Space.
quote:McCoy injecting Spock to take his place in "The Empath" - the whole concept of deep friendship of this type - and sacrifice - in the late 60's between hetero men.
This is the sort of thing you'd see in lots of good (and lots of bad) WWII films. Far from new to the '60s.
quote:M5 - and the controversies it sparked.
Granted. Though your average viewer needed no extra prompting to be afraid of technology, there weren't any serious dramas about it that I know of on television.
quote:"The Conscience of the King" - my first exposure to Shakespeare at age 8.
Again, an example of a good episode (well, mostly good), and an appeal to the "literateness" of the show. And Shakespeare seems to translate well to science fiction. But it doesn't seem to me to be at all exclusive to it. For instance...
quote:What? Few of these require a sf setting - could have been done in a cop or western genre? Well, they wouldn't have been.
I totally disagree. Partners with deep friendships and absolutely no conscious homoerotic overtones are at the heart of your typical western or cop show. Strong characters are not unique to science fiction.
I feel we're arguing at cross-purposes here. I certainly don't deny that TOS is a fine show, one of my favorites. But it is a fine show because it succeeds at the sorts of things other fine shows were doing, if that makes any sense. I see no real difference between the average story Star Trek told and the average story Gunsmoke told. (Gene certainly didn't!) I also won't deny that the show being science fiction was a large part of its success. But I don't think it was at the heart of it.
Now, to prove I am not a bad guy, let's note that the episodes usually considered to be Trek's finest DO contain some central SFnal idea. (Time travel, say.)
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I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
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when i hear the end score of first season Trek episodes, the first half of which featured an eerie howling music type thing, it reminds me of when i used to be sitting there watching it in the dark when i was seven, and knowing that it was 11:55 and i was about to either be subjected to a) the american flag and signal stoppage that would leave me completely in the dark and scared or b) my parents shutting off the TV and shooing me into my scary room where i would have insomnia thinknig about how scary it wouldbe to havea monster try to suck the salt out of me... i know it haslittle to do with the actualquality of the production, but iwill never shake that feeling...
Registered: Sep 2001
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It would be intesting to compare my feelings towards TNG to those of the generation that got TOS at a similar age. It would shock me if at least a majority of our love for the various series wasn't rooted in some form of nostalgia.
I mean, that's the same reason people still talk about Transformers and He-Man? Right? Right?
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
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I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
Member # 709
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/pop culture whore.
if i saw it before i was 10 years old, its invaluable to me now. Star trek TOS and TNG, He-Man, Transformers, GIJoe, the crappy Batman show, and even Go-Bots, Rom Spaceknight and Planet Terry comics still populate my dreams.
maybe i should grow up, but im getting up early at sunday to go buy toys at the flea market. i gotta be me...
Registered: Sep 2001
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I notice that Simon conveniently left "Court Martial" off of that list. Which is a good thing indeed.
People do talk about nostalgic things, but the trick is to see if they are still watchable now. A lot of us here are likely to have seen TNG before we saw TOS, and yet we can still watch it, like it, admire it's good points, and so on. You watch He-Man now though and the only thought that comes into mind is "Was this writen by a bunch of retarded monkeys?"
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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That sums up certain episodes of Voyager for me.
I enjoy TOS for a completely different reason than TNG: TOS is really ginchy. I can't think of another American show that was quite as bizarre as Star Trek.
How many times did an alien recreate some kind of surreal enviroment based on Earth history for the crew of the Enterprise? You had an alien Napoleon trying to outwit Kirk, which is quite a bit unlike Wagon Train.
And so on.
Really, the whole thing reminds me of the ramblings of Timothy Leary, minus the intensive drug references.
TNG initially got me because I like the characters. Reviewing the first season I find that I still like them--although they're all a little too perfect.
Wesley Crusher being such a 50's space cadet has actually made me laugh out loud..."Gee! That power converter is really swell, Geordi!"
It's the touch of Gene that made TNG quirky, and likable. It's optimistic stuff, there, and though you can see the sap running thick, it somehow doesn't get on your nerves.
Registered: Jan 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Thoughtchopper: I enjoy TOS for a completely different reason than TNG: TOS is really ginchy. I can't think of another American show that was quite as bizarre as Star Trek.
So the gaint carrots on Lost in Space were an everyday sort of occurenec in 60s America? And what about the Twilight Zone?
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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OK becoming all superficial here. I want to know, for those who grew up in the 1960's with Star Trek - what were the effects like then. We now-a-days have been spoiled with the relatively brilliant effects compared to TOS days. The only time I think I might have come close to being back in the sixities and watching something like Trek for the first time, was the TOS Season 1 (and then later season 2) marathons they had here on PayTV last year and a few months ago. I sat and watched (at night) episode after episode after episode. I even rewatched ones I had seen before and came to episodes I couldn't sit through easily before, where I sat and lapped them right up - because after about the first 3 episodes in a row, The 'effects', the sixties-ness, the colour scheme, the hair-cuts, the filmgrain etc. etc. etc. all fell away - and I was left with pure Trek. It was wonderful. BUT I want to know what were TOS's effects like when it first aired... were they ground breaking? Did you sit there and go "WOAH" matrix-style? I know there aren't that many on these boards who actually watched TOS when it first aired in 1966-68.
-------------------- "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." - Jim Halpert. (The Office)
posted
I've never seen Lost in Space. It's a cultural gaff, I know. Someday I'll get a big bag of crack and dive into it, but right now it's not something I know much about.
The Twilight Zone was a collection of self-contained stories about people or towns that had wandered into, well, The Twilight Zone. Some of it was Strange, but it was never Ginchy.
Ginchy is green go-go girls trying to make it with the Captian of a starship that looks like an upside down Electolux.
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